A plain-English overview of legal issues that affect creatives and creators, as understood by someone who works in the business. Posts aren't legal advice, my employer isn't responsible for what I say, subscribe if you like what you see.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

On the weekend, 12 Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as Best Picture. There has been some controversy around the authorship of the screenplay. Apparently Steve McQueen believed at one point that he should have received a writer credit, John Ridley disagreed, and so Ridley ended up with the credit and therefore the award.

These kinds of things usually don't happen. The Writers' Guild of America has literally over 50 pages in its Collective Bargaining Agreement setting out the criteria for assigning credit and, if there's a dispute between writers, the arbitration method for settling it. So why didn't that happen here?

About Me

I'm an adjunct professor of Entertainment Law at the University of Washington and the General Counsel of The Pokémon Company International. Before being at Pokémon I was the head lawyer for Microsoft Game Studios. I write a legal blog with practical tips for creators and creatives at www.legalminimum.net and tweet from @LegalMinimum. I'm also a failed standup comic and once narrated romance novel books on tape. So there's that.

Mandatory weasel words: I'm not your personal attorney and I'm not creating an attorney-client relationship with you when you read my posts. If you need specialized legal advice, go hire someone. And my employer isn't responsible for what I say.